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on Labor Markets - Supply, Demand, and Wages |
| By: | Michael R. Richards; Jonathan Seward; Christopher M. Whaley |
| Abstract: | Human capital formation enhances worker productivity and firm performance. However, firms may not fully internalize the financial benefits from investing in employee skill-building, which can disincentivize worker training and suggest roles for government support. We examine such tradeoffs in the context of physician training (i.e., “residency” programs). Using the universe of Medicare inpatient and outpatient records from 2014-2019 and differences-in-differences analyses, we show that hospitals’ productivity and revenues grow by 10-20% after underwriting a procedure-oriented residency––though heterogeneity exists. The hospitals benefiting from trainee labor conservatively net over $2 million in steady-state, revealing substantive private incentives to finance physician training. |
| JEL: | I11 I18 J24 J44 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34365 |
| By: | Gazze, Ludovica (University of Warwick); Gupta, Tanu (University of Southampton); Huang, Allen (Weiyi) (University of Oxford); Londono, Valentina (Universidad del Rosario); Saavedra, Santiago (Universidad del Rosario); Toma, Mattie (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | There is limited evidence on the non-health impacts of air pollution, including productivity in the workplace and behavior. We examine the effect of air pollution on participation, collaboration, and feedback provision in a workplace setting. Our experiment randomly assigns air purifiers to rooms at three large academic conferences to investigate the causal impact of air pollution on participants' engagement behavior. We construct a participant engagement index based on 12 presentation-level behavioral outcomes directly measured by conference observers through an online form and weigh each behavioral outcome using weights elicited from an expert survey. Conference rooms treated with air purifiers exhibit 48% less PM2.5 concentration compared to control rooms. However, we do not find a statistically significant change in engagement. Communication in the workplace might not be a large driver of the empirical relationship between air quality and productivity, albeit more research is needed across workplaces and measures of communication. |
| Keywords: | field experiment, workplace, engagement, indoor air quality |
| JEL: | Q53 J24 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18154 |
| By: | Velilla, Jorge (University of Zaragoza); Molina, José Alberto (University of Zaragoza); Chiappori, Pierre-André (Columbia University) |
| Abstract: | Household dissolution is a key concern in family economics, with implications for individual welfare, child outcomes, income trajectories, or wealth, which ultimately impact inequality and vulnerability. This paper examines how wage dynamics relate to the stability of dual-earner households, using a collective model with limited commitment, where spouses commit to future behavior subject to individual rationality constraints, allowing for renegotiation of intrahousehold arrangements or household dissolution. We use data from the PSID over 1999-2019, and estimate how spouses’ wage changes relate to divorce, accounting for observed behaviors, demographics, and unobserved heterogeneity. The results show that large negative wage changes significantly increase the likelihood of divorce, while positive changes have no effect, as the model predicts. This pattern is consistent with asymmetric intrahousehold insurance, highlighting the role of economic risk and bargaining asymmetries in shaping family dynamics, and informs policies targeting household vulnerability to income shocks. |
| Keywords: | wages, divorce, commitment, collective model, PSID data |
| JEL: | D12 D13 J12 J31 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18152 |
| By: | Cramer, Robert J (Vanderbilt University); Kniesner, Thomas J. (Claremont Graduate University); Viscusi, W. Kip (Vanderbilt University) |
| Abstract: | Although wage rates are lower when employers have monopsony power, we find that the value of a statistical life (VSL) is not reduced when labor markets are more concentrated. Because the estimated VSL is the product of the wage and the wage-risk tradeoff rate, a greater tradeoff rate in highly concentrated U.S. labor markets produces a larger VSL. The general relationship we find is robust with respect to different labor market data. Our results provide the first evidence contradicting policy-related concerns that the VSL is lower in monopsonistic labor markets. |
| Keywords: | monopsony, VSL, value of a statistical life, concentration, HHI |
| JEL: | J17 J42 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18173 |
| By: | Ek, Simon (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy); Fredriksson, Peter (Uppsala universitet and UCLS); Hensvik, Lena (Uppsala universitet and UCLS); Nordström Skans, Oskar (Uppsala universitet and UCLS) |
| Abstract: | We show that workers use outside options to extract match-specific rents. Exploiting unique data on worker skills, we construct a measure of match quality based on the relationship between workers’ multidimensional skills and job-specific skill requirements. Focusing on job-to-job movers, we first demonstrate that match quality associated with the previous job has a stronger impact on current wages than current match quality. This finding strongly suggests that job-to-job movers use previous match quality as an outside option in negotiations with their current employer. Our second key finding relates to wages within ongoing matches. We show that an improvement of local labor market conditions increases the wage return to match quality. This finding is robust to an unusually detailed set of controls, including job-year fixed effects that account for heterogeneity in wage cyclicality across jobs. Outside offers, which are more frequent in tighter labor markets, thus allow incumbent workers to extract a larger share of match-specific surplus. Hence, rent-sharing is pro-cyclical, counter to standard wage-sharing assumptions used in most empirical reduced-form specifications and in canonical search models. |
| Keywords: | Match quality; Wage dispersion; Rent-sharing; On-the-job search; Business cycles |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J41 J63 |
| Date: | 2025–10–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2025_017 |
| By: | Nava Ashraf; Natalie Bau; Corinne Low; Xiaoyue Shan |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the effects of teaching negotiation skills to adolescent girls in economically vulnerable compounds in Lusaka, Zambia ten years later. Treated participants complete 0.27 more years of education. Consistent with greater relational empowerment, they also begin sexual activity later, marry later, have smaller age gaps with their husbands, are less likely to report a high likelihood of having HIV, and express less traditional gender attitudes. Social benefits and costs from HIV reduction and increased education suggest the intervention generated 7.8-16.2 dollars for every dollar spent and may have paid for itself in government revenues. |
| JEL: | I12 I21 J24 O12 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34339 |
| By: | Michal Hodor; Liat Eldor; Peter Cappelli |
| Abstract: | Recent research in psychology, management, and more recently in economics, highlights the role of individual managers and their behavior in shaping employee performance. While emerging literature on harmful managerial behavior has focused primarily on severe forms of workplace mistreatment, especially various types of harassment, much less is known about its boundary conditions: How minor can a manager’s bad behavior be and still negatively affect employee performance? We study what appears to be a very minor workplace mistreatment—failing to deliver an expected birthday gift and greeting card on time—and examine its effect on subsequent employee performance. Using a dynamic difference-in-differences approach with detailed data from a national retail chain, we find that this small slight leads to over a 50% increase in employee absenteeism and a reduction of more than two working hours per month. Our analysis suggests that emotional responses to perceived workplace mistreatment drive the results. These findings indicate that even modest slights can meaningfully harm employee performance. |
| JEL: | D23 J22 J24 J53 M50 M54 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34362 |
| By: | Klauber, Hannah (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research); Koch, Nicolas (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research); Pestel, Nico (Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how prolonged exposure to heat affects the labor force's ability to work in the short and long run. Linking administrative public health insurance records for one-third of the German working-age population to the quasi-experimental occurrence of heat waves, we provide the first comprehensive characterization of the occupation-specific heterogeneity in how heat-induced health damages materialize in decreased labor supply, and its distributional implications. An average hot day increases the number of new sick leave cases, and the effects build with prolonged heat. After seven consecutive days of heat exposure, the impact is roughly three times greater than on the first day. Workers who are already disadvantaged in terms of their income and working conditions are more vulnerable to heat stress. Those who are more flexible in scheduling and adjusting their working hours are less at risk. Our results also reveal a longer-term decrease in labor supply in the years following heat wave exposure, and suggest sustained increases in expenditures for healthcare. |
| Keywords: | climate change, inequality, labor, heat, adaptation |
| JEL: | J20 J32 I18 Q50 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18176 |
| By: | Hanna Brosch (Technical University of Munich, TUM School of Management, Heilbronn Campus); Philipp Lergetporer (Technical University of Munich, TUM School of Management, Heilbronn Campus); Florian Schoner (ifo Institute and University of Munich) |
| Abstract: | Firm training is key to meeting changing skill demands, yet little is known about the role of workers’ beliefs in shaping training participation. In a survey of 3, 701 workers in Germany, we document that they expect substantial returns to firm training – both in terms of earnings and non-pecuniary outcomes such as promotion chances, job task complexity, or enjoyment. These beliefs predict actual and intended training participation. Lower-skilled workers anticipate smaller non-pecuniary returns, partly explaining their lower uptake. An information treatment addressing return beliefs significantly increases training intentions among lower-skilled workers, suggesting that targeting beliefs may help narrow participation gaps between lower- and higher-skilled workers. |
| Keywords: | beliefs, firm training, skill mismatch, human capital, survey |
| JEL: | J24 J31 D83 I21 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aiw:wpaper:44 |
| By: | Sturm, Patrick |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates workplace peer efects in retirement by leveraging a German pension reform that eliminated a widely used early retirement option for women. Using administrative linked employer-employee data, I compare women's retirement behavior by exploiting variation in the share of their workplace peers who were afected by the reform based on their birth date. I fnd signifcant and robust peer efects: women are more likely to delay their retirement when their peers extend their employment due to the reform. Investigating potential underlying mechanisms, I provide suggestive evidence for information transmission and social norms about working in old-age. In addition, employer characteristics play an important role in shaping these peer efects. Overall, the fndings highlight the importance of accounting for workplace peer efects when evaluating the broader labor supply impacts of pension policies. |
| Keywords: | peer efects, retirement policies, social interactions |
| JEL: | D22 J08 J26 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wuewep:328243 |
| By: | Deschacht, Nick (KU Leuven); Guillemyn, Inés (University of Antwerp); Vujic, Suncica (University of Antwerp) |
| Abstract: | Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement (SHARE), this paper examines occupational pension income and coverage gaps between men and women. The focus is on a group of countries with comparable occupational pension regulations: Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The results show that after accounting for observable characteristics, over half of the gender gap in occupational pension coverage is explained, largely driven by women’s shorter labour market participation, greater part-time work, and lower wages. Factors driving this gap remain constant across birth cohorts. Conditional on receiving an occupational pension, women receive nearly 40 percent less occupational pension income than men, partly due to part-time work and industry of employment. Selection into pension receipt has only a limited impact on the gender pension gap. While pension coverage gap decomposition shows little variation across countries, this is not the case for the gender pension gap, notably with cross-country differences in part-time work. |
| Keywords: | Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, gender occupational pension income and coverage gaps, Yun decomposition, selection, Europe |
| JEL: | H75 I38 J32 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18163 |
| By: | Deschacht, Nick (KU Leuven); Guillemyn, Inés (University of Antwerp); Vujic, Suncica (University of Antwerp) |
| Abstract: | This study estimates individuals’ willingness to pay for pension benefits using a discrete choice experiment with fictitious job advertisements conducted among workers in the United Kingdom (UK). The results indicate that workers are willing to trade off current pay for additional pension benefits, with the marginal worker willing to forgo 0.3% of their current wage for a one percentage point increase in pension benefits. Willingness to pay varies significantly across individuals, increasing with proximity to retirement age, higher income levels, financial planning and financial literacy. |
| Keywords: | discrete choice experiment (DCE), wage-pension trade-off, United Kingdom |
| JEL: | C9 D9 J16 J32 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18164 |
| By: | Baktash, Mehrzad B.; Heywood, John S.; Jirjahn, Uwe |
| Abstract: | Using German survey data, we show conflicting influences of performance pay on overall life satisfaction. The overall influence reflects a strong positive influence through domains of life satisfaction associated with the job (job satisfaction, individual earnings satisfaction and household earning satisfaction) and a strong negative influence through domains away from the job (health satisfaction, sleep satisfaction and family life satisfaction). This trade-off between work and home generalizes and helps explain many previous studies examining much more specific consequences of performance pay. Finally, controlling for the mediating role of the domains, the direct influence on life satisfaction is positive for women and insignificantly different from zero for men. |
| Keywords: | Performance Pay, Life Satisfaction, Well-Being, Satisfaction Domains, Gender |
| JEL: | D10 J22 J33 M52 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1677 |
| By: | Moritz Lubczyk; Maria Waldinger |
| Abstract: | What are the long-run effects of sustained exposure to air pollution? A unique natural experiment allows us to examine this question. In 1982, a sudden cut in Soviet oil forced Socialist East Germany to switch to highly polluting lignite coal. While the shock sharply increased air pollution near mining regions, authoritarian restrictions on mobility, housing, and jobs prevented sorting responses. We document persistent labor market impacts over three decades. Exposed individuals work less, earn lower wages, and retire earlier. Health is a key mechanism: infant mortality rises by 9\% and the long-run incidence of asthma and cardiopathy increases significantly. |
| Keywords: | air pollution, labour supply |
| JEL: | I15 J24 J60 N54 Q53 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12197 |
| By: | Chiswick, Carmel U. |
| Abstract: | The goal of economic development is to raise standards of living in LDCs, to be achieved by accumulating both human and non-human capital so as to maximize production net of the cost of these investments. An LDC economy is modelled with two sectors, modern and traditional, each of which uses its own type of human and non-human capital in production. Sector-specific human capital is specified as an attribute embodied in its workers, who have agency to choose their sector of employment and level of education. Earnings of labor are the sum of two components: recovery of human capital investment costs (e.g., student loan repayments) and an economic rent (i.e., profit) available for current consumption. The consumption-maximizing resource allocation equalizes rates of return to investments in all types of capital and allocates workers between the two sectors so that labor rents (i.e. consumption levels) are the same in both. Policy implications emphasize removing economic, social and cultural barriers to economic mobility for all resources. |
| Keywords: | Economic development, growth, human capital, LDCs, labor rents |
| JEL: | I25 I26 J21 J24 O00 O15 O41 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1679 |
| By: | Gabriele Ciminelli (Asian Development Bank); Guido Franco (Centro Studi Confindustria) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of job protection deregulation on firms’ productivity, leveraging a size-based cutoff in the eligibility criteria of a pivotal 2014 labor market reform in Italy. The reform replaced reinstatement requirements with a progressive compensation system for unjust dismissals of new hires in firms with more than 15 employees, while leaving smaller firms unaffected. We find that total factor productivity increased by 1% in treated firms relative to control firms, on average, in each of the 5 years following the reform’s implementation. Labor productivity gains were slightly larger, also driven by capital deepening. Next, we extend the analysis to uncover how the productivity gains were distributed between employers and workers. Capital owners benefited more, as the reform led to a gradual decline in the labor share of value added, reaching 0.7 percentage points after 5 years. |
| Keywords: | employment protection legislation;job protection deregulation;total factor productivity;capital deepening;income distribution;labor share of income |
| JEL: | D22 D24 J08 J41 O43 |
| Date: | 2025–10–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbewp:021674 |
| By: | Fawaz, Yarine (CEMFI, Madrid); Hospido, Laura (Bank of Spain); Martí Llobet, Júlia (CEMFI) |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the effects of a randomized activation program targeting recipients of the Spain’s national Minimum Income Scheme. The intervention combined personalized coaching, job-search assistance, soft-skills training, and, in one treatment arm, also digital-skills workshops. While short-run employment effects were limited, the program significantly reduced the prevalence of informal work and improved participants’ financial resilience. Gains were particularly pronounced among those who received the digital-skills component, who reported large improvements in digital task performance. Half a year after receiving the treatment, administrative social security records show emerging positive effects on days worked, contract stability, and full-time employment, especially in the digital-skills group. We also find evidence of a psychological awareness effect: low-engagement participants reported lower self-assessed transversal skills, possibly reflecting a shift in self-perception. Our findings highlight the potential of multidimensional, personalized activation strategies to foster formalization and digital inclusion among low-income populations. |
| Keywords: | randomized controlled trial, active labor market policies, social inclusion |
| JEL: | I32 I38 E24 C93 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18169 |
| By: | Jingyi Cui; Gabriel Dias; Justin Ye |
| Abstract: | We study how generative AI affects labor market signaling using the introduction of an AI-powered cover letter writing tool on Freelancer.com. Our data track both access to the tool and usage at the application level. Difference-in-differences estimates show that access to the AI tool increased textual alignment between cover letters and job posts--which we refer to as cover letter tailoring--and raised callback likelihoods. Workers with weaker pre-AI writing skills saw larger improvements in cover letters, indicating that AI substitutes for workers' own skills. Although only a minority of applications used the tool, the overall correlation between cover letter tailoring and callbacks fell by 51%, implying that cover letters became less informative signals of worker ability in the age of AI. Employers correspondingly shifted toward alternative signals, such as workers' past reviews, which became more predictive of hiring. Finally, within the treated group, greater time spent editing AI drafts was associated with higher hiring success. |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2509.25054 |
| By: | Albanese, Andrea (LISER); Deschenes, Olivier (University of California, Santa Barbara); Gathmann, Christina (LISER); Nieto Castro, Adrian (Lund University) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides novel evidence of the impact of temperature fluctuations on retirement behavior and underlying mechanisms, combining 30 years of rich longitudinal survey data with granular daily weather information. Exposure to cold and hot temperatures accelerates transitions into retirement, particularly among individuals unaccustomed to such conditions, and the effects are strongest among vulnerable populations facing greater health challenges and limited access to healthcare. Extreme temperatures deteriorate health through a higher incidence of cardiovascular diseases and strokes, reducing individuals' ability to work, while better access to healthcare mitigates the adverse effects of extreme temperatures on retirement behavior. |
| Keywords: | retirement, health, temperature, healthcare |
| JEL: | I14 I18 J26 Q54 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18161 |
| By: | Rieder, André (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg); Schnabel, Claus (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg) |
| Abstract: | Representative establishment data reveal that over 60 percent of German plants covered by collective agreements pay wages above the level stipulated in the agreements, creating a wage cushion between actual and contractual wages. While collective bargaining coverage has fallen over time, the prevalence of wage cushions has increased, particularly in eastern Germany. Cross-sectional and fixed-effects analyses for 2008-2023 indicate that in western Germany the presence of a wage cushion is mainly related to plant profitability, unemployment, vacancies, and the business cycle. Plants which apply collective agreements at the firm rather than the sectoral level are less likely to have wage cushions since firm-level agreements make it easier to explicitly take firm-specific conditions into account. In eastern Germany, however, the explanatory power of these variables is considerably lower. Against the backdrop of falling bargaining coverage, the increasing prevalence of wage cushions suggests that the traditionally rigid German system of wage determination has become more flexible and differentiated. |
| Keywords: | wage cushion, collective bargaining, wage determination, Germany |
| JEL: | J30 J31 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18153 |
| By: | Ashani Abayasekara (Health Economics Group, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University); Sonja de New (Centre for Health Economics, Monash Business School, Monash University); David Johnston (Centre for Health Economics, Monash Business School, Monash University) |
| Abstract: | As economies decarbonise and automate, entire industries within countries will disappear, raising questions about how displaced workers will fare and how policy can best support them. To provide evidence on this issue, this paper examines the economic and mental health consequences of the complete shutdown of Australia’s automotive manufacturing industry. Using linked administrative data, we estimate the medium-term effects of this large-scale closure relative to comparable workers in unaffected manufacturing and construction sectors. We find substantial and persistent declines in employment and salary income among displaced workers, with limited recovery over five years. These effects are concentrated among older and lower-skilled workers, who experience higher rates of joblessness, occupational downgrading, and transition into self-employment. In contrast, younger and higher-skilled workers recover more quickly. Despite substantial disruption, we find no increase in mental healthcare use, potentially reflecting the unusually comprehensive support programs provided before and after closure. |
| Keywords: | Job displacement, layoffs, Industrial transitions, employment, mental health |
| JEL: | I12 J63 J23 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mhe:chemon:2025-15 |
| By: | Wanda Schleder (Johannes-Gutenberg University, Germany) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effectiveness of a factorial intervention aimed at improving emotional skills done at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in the winter-semester 2023/2024. The four intervention components, mindfulness, emotional regulation, self-acceptance, and resource activation, were evaluated with respect to their impact on emotional skills and other well-being outcomes. Due to a high dropout rate, no definitive conclusions can be drawn about the optimal composition of training components. However, resource activation shows a significantly positive effect on stress and a depression-related score. The findings also indicate that the Big Five personality traits play a crucial role in determining outcome variables. In addition, several approaches to estimating treatment effects were compared. The results suggest that a regression approach that directly accounts for all intervention factors and baseline scores should be preferred over simpler effect size measures. |
| Keywords: | non-cognitive skills, emotional skill intervention, factorial experiment, effect sizes |
| JEL: | C93 I10 I19 I31 J24 |
| Date: | 2025–10–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jgu:wpaper:2507 |
| By: | Saraswat, Deepak (University of Connecticut); Sabarwal, Shwetlena (World Bank); Lacey, Lindsey (Allegheny County Department of Human Services); Jha, Natasha (University of Notre Dame); Prakash, Nishith (Northeastern University); Cohen, Rachel (University of Connecticut) |
| Abstract: | Nearly 200 million children under five in low- and middle-income countries face developmental deficits despite growing access to early childhood services. We report evidence from a randomized controlled trial (N=3, 131 children in 201 schools) in Nepal’s government system that tested three models combining classroom quality with parental engagement. All teachers received a 15-day training on pedagogy, standards, and caregiver outreach, after which schools were randomly assigned to models where caregiver sessions were led by teachers alone, teachers supported with in-class helpers, or external facilitators. The program raised children’s developmental outcomes by 0.10–0.20 standard deviations and improved caregiver engagement by similar magnitudes, with strongest effects when teachers received support that preserved classroom quality while engaging families. Gains were concentrated among disadvantaged households, underscoring the potential to reduce early inequalities. Mechanism analysis shows that the program shifted home and school inputs from substitutes to complements, creating reinforcing pathways for child development. |
| Keywords: | non-cognitive skills, cognitive skills, early childhood development, Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ), Nepal |
| JEL: | J13 J24 I21 I24 O15 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18159 |
| By: | Giulia Montresor; Catia Nicodemo; Cristina Bellés Obrero |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the causal effects of extreme temperatures and a related adaptation policy on workplace accidents in Spain, combining administrative records on occupational accidents with high-resolution weather data. Both cold and heat raise the incidence of work accidents, though with different magnitudes: ice days (maximum temperatures |
| Keywords: | adaptation policy, climate change, temperature, work place accidents |
| JEL: | I1 J28 J81 Q54 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1519 |
| By: | Gabriel Burdin; Fabio Landini |
| Abstract: | Why does capital typically hire labor rather than the other way around? Employee-owned firms with majority workforce control—such as worker cooperatives—remain rare in market economies, despite evidence that they perform at least as well as investor-owned firms across various contexts. In this paper, we examine whether beliefs help explain this puzzle by shaping policy preferences and willingness to work in such organizations. In a preregistered experiment guided by a detailed pre-analysis plan, we randomly exposed 2, 000 young adults to information from an international expert survey. Respondents held more pessimistic prior beliefs about worker cooperatives compared to experts. Information exposure led to more optimistic beliefs and increased support for pro-cooperative policies. Text analysis of open-ended responses reveals fewer negative and more positive first-order concerns about cooperatives in the treatment group. We also find suggestive evidence of a relative re-ranking of career intentions in favor of worker cooperatives. |
| Keywords: | Beliefs, Career Intentions, Job Attributes, Preferences, Employee Ownership, Cooperatives, Information Experiment Jel Classification:C91, D83, J24, J54 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:932 |
| By: | Pauline Corblet; Jeremy T. Fox; Alfred Galichon |
| Abstract: | We introduce a model of dynamic matching with transferable utility, extending the static model of Shapley and Shubik (1971). Forward-looking agents have individual states that evolve with current matches. Each period, a matching market with market-clearing prices takes place. We prove the existence of an equilibrium with time-varying distributions of agent types and show it is the solution to a social planner’s problem. We also prove that a stationary equilibrium exists. We introduce econometric shocks to account for unobserved heterogeneity in match formation. We propose two algorithms to compute a stationary equilibrium. We adapt both algorithms for estimation. We estimate a model of accumulation of job-specific human capital using data on Swedish engineers. |
| JEL: | C1 C78 J20 L10 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34352 |
| By: | Abril Arteaga, Andres Sebastian; Rangel, Marcos; Zanoni, Wladimir |
| Abstract: | We developed a Labor Market Turing Test (LMTT) to measure human-AI decision alignment using data from 277 human recruiters engaged in a field experiment set in Quito, Ecuador. We augmented the pool of recruiters by creating AI teams, each of which with differing impersonation of human-like traits, and compared their choices to humans and a benchmark AI model. While AI teams were more consistent, they selected candidates with a pattern that markedly different from human choices. In fact, random decisions mir- rored human choices more closely than our most human-like AI agents. These findings reveal a fundamental tension between algorithmic consistency and human judgment. That humans were closer to a random process when com- paring candidates with equal productivity might be seen as a fairer outcome. Our LMTT framework, which involves isolating and estimating a machina la- tent trait, provides a quantitative tool for assessing human-AI alignment which can be employed across critical domains, such as healthcare, justice, and edu- cation, thereby informing the design and AI governance. |
| Keywords: | Algorithmic Fairness;Human-AI Alignment;Latent Trait Analysis |
| JEL: | J71 M51 C91 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:14296 |
| By: | Davillas, Apostolos (CINCH - Health Economics Research Center, Essen, Germany); Jones, Andrew M. (University of York) |
| Abstract: | We examine the role of baseline health in predicting future employment exits, alongside established socioeconomic, job-related and demographic predictors. Using UKHLS, we track employed respondents over 10 years to assess subsequent employment exits. Baseline health is captured using an unusually rich set of measures: self-assessed health (SAH), self-reported diagnosed conditions, psychological distress, allostatic load (composite biomarker index), and epigenetic biological age. Applying a LASSO penalised regression approach, we find that epigenetic biological age and SAH, rather than self-reported conditions, psychological distress, or allostatic load, predict subsequent employment exits, independent of other predictors. A Shapley-Shorrocks decomposition highlights epigenetic biological age as a stronger predictor than SAH. Nevertheless, chronological age is the dominant predictor of future employment exits. Epigenetic biological age measures do allow us to disentangle the role of chronological age, mainly reflecting institutional structures such as retirement eligibility and societal norms, from other contributions that capture age-related health decline that are more directly reflected in epigenetic biological age measures. |
| Keywords: | employment exit, supervised machine learning, LASSO, biomarkers, biological age, epigenetics, labour market |
| JEL: | C5 I10 J01 J20 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18167 |
| By: | Treb Allen; Winston Chen; Suresh Naidu |
| Abstract: | What would the antebellum American economy have looked like without slavery? Using new micro-data on the U.S. economy in 1860, we document that where free and enslaved workers live and how much they earn correlates strongly—but differently—with geographic proxies for agricultural productivity, disease, and ease of slave escape. To explain these patterns, we build a quantitative spatial model of slavery, where slaveholders coerce enslaved workers into supplying more labor, capture the proceeds of their labor, and assign them to sectors and occupations that maximize owner profits rather than worker welfare. Combining theory and data, we then quantify how dismantling the institution of slavery affected the spatial economy. We find that the economic impacts of emancipation are substantial, generating welfare gains for the enslaved of roughly 1, 200%, while reducing welfare of free workers by 0.7% and eliminating slaveholder profit. Aggregate GDP rises by 9.1%, with a contraction in agricultural productivity counteracted by an expansion in manufacturing and services driven by an exodus of formerly enslaved workers out of agriculture and into the U.S. North. |
| JEL: | J47 N51 O17 R1 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34356 |
| By: | Joern Block; Miriam Gnad; Alexander S. Kritikos; Caroline Stiel |
| Abstract: | Despite substantial research on job satisfaction in self-employment, we know little about the specific consequences for the venture when job satisfaction declines after an external shock. Taking the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of an external shock and drawing on a sample of nearly 7, 000 self-employed individuals living in Germany, we investigate how declines in job satisfaction are related to investment decisions of self-employed individuals. Having separated job satisfaction into its financial and non-financial aspects, we build in our analysis on two complementary behavioral perspectives to predict how reductions in financial and non-financial job satisfaction relate to investments in venture development. Our results show that decreasing financial job satisfaction is positively related to time investments. This finding provides support for the performance feedback perspective, where negative performance, in terms of reduced financial job satisfaction, induces higher search efforts to improve the business situation. Moreover, we also observe that reductions in non-financial job satisfaction are negatively associated with both time and monetary investments. This supports the broadening-and-build perspective in that negative experiences – in the form of reduced non-financial job satisfaction – narrow the thought-action repertoire, thus hindering resource deployment. Implications of reduced job satisfaction on investment behavior are discussed. |
| Keywords: | Job satisfaction, investment decisions, self-employment and entrepreneurship, performance feedback perspective, broadening-and-build perspective, behavioral economics, economic psychology, Germany |
| JEL: | L26 J28 G11 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp2142 |
| By: | Tsoukli, Xanthi |
| Abstract: | Little is known about the effects of political conflicts on the status of women in society. Polarizing attitudes might have a differential effect on women's lives after a conflict. To consider this, the case of Greece after the Second World War is exploited, when the country became highly polarized between left and right ideologies, resulting in a threeyear full-scale civil war. A referendum regarding the reinstatement of the monarchy is used as an indicator of political beliefs, and, in a difference-in-differences setting, it is demonstrated that 10% greater political opposition to the monarchy implied that female labour force participation was 1.4% higher after the war. A plausible mechanism is through conservative areas becoming more conservative and liberal areas becoming more liberal, and data on the construction of new churches, a conservative institution, are consistent with this hypothesis. Finally, it is found that these effects were persistent, as reflected by female labour force participation until 1981, and attitudes revealed in the European Value Survey of 1999. |
| Keywords: | political conflict, female labour force participation, gender norms, Greece |
| JEL: | J21 J71 N34 N44 R23 Z13 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:bamber:328242 |
| By: | Timothy G. Conley; Bill Dupor; Rong Li; Yijiang Zhou |
| Abstract: | We develop a framework that jointly identifies local and aggregate effects of government transfer shocks with cross-state spillovers. Using the Romer–Romer Social Security transfer-adjustment series and state personal income, we combine aggregate time-series variation with cross-sectional exposure to recover the local, spillover, and aggregate multipliers. The specification is aggregation-consistent: state coefficients sum to the aggregate response, making the decomposition of the national effect into local and spillover components transparent. The aggregate multiplier is positive and roughly half the local multiplier, with both statistically different from zero. Spillover estimates are negative but imprecise. Estimates are robust to controls for business cycle factors. |
| Keywords: | local-spillover decomposition; government transfers; social security |
| JEL: | E62 J32 |
| Date: | 2025–10–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:101912 |